Apple is developing a screenless health fitness tracker resembling the Whoop strap
According to insiders, Apple is developing a screenless health fitness tracker that resembles the Whoop strap, as part of its rethinking of the smartwatch product line and the addition of new wearable categories. The company has been exploring this for several months and has entered the prototyping phase, with support from senior management, but has not yet decided whether to mass-produce it.
The prototype consists of a thin fabric strap with a sensor-equipped computing module, without a screen, to differentiate it from the display-centric Apple Watch. The project is still in what is internally referred to as the "technical research" phase; if it progresses, it will not be available until after 2028. Apple declined to comment. Following the news, Garmin's stock fell by as much as 2.5% during trading, while Apple’s stock rose about 1% by midday.
The project has the support of Tim Cook and Eddy Cue, the head of services. Cue took over the health team after Jeff Williams left in October last year and is pushing for a simplified interface that aligns with Whoop and Oura—focusing on continuous health and training rather than notifications and apps on the watch. The Watch Series 12 has already incorporated continuous heart rate capabilities that competitors have, and added metrics like readiness and biological age; a new interface for the Health app is also being tested in iOS 27.2.
Whoop has entered the market with a screenless design, long battery life, and recovery and load monitoring, with the 5.0 series lasting over 14 days, and also offers a medical-grade MG with ECG. The Oura ring has taken a different screenless approach, selling about 3.6 million units in the 12 months ending June 30 and preparing for an IPO. The Apple Watch still serves broader functions, with the next major redesign of the watch expected no earlier than late 2027, while plans are in place to first launch wearable AI glasses and camera-equipped AirPods.
Market dynamics indicate this is a category supplement rather than an immediate product launch: the buyers are users who do not want to wear a watch all day but need continuous health data; the seller is Apple, using its Health ecosystem to create a second entry point below the Watch. Funding has not yet formed for device sales, with the initial impact on the expected discount of stocks like Garmin. The beneficiaries are Apple, which has already integrated readiness scores into its watch software; the pressured parties are Whoop, which relies on subscriptions, and Garmin, which differentiates itself with professional sports watches. The event is driven by the shift in wearable competition from "a screen" to "can it be worn 24 hours a day."
A screenless design prioritizes battery life and wear time over notifications; if realized, Apple would sell both a watch that needs charging and a strap that users would ideally not take off, with data still flowing into the same health account.
Source: Public information
ABAB AI Insight
Since Apple Watch made health a secondary function of the watch in 2015, competitors have taken two divergent paths: Whoop eliminated the screen for continuous wear and subscription, while Oura integrated sensors into a ring. Cupertino first incorporated competitors' scores into the Series 12 system, then had Cue take over health from the service side, mirroring the strategy used to counterattack hardware with iPod software capabilities—first standardizing data collection, then deciding whether to produce narrower hardware. Cook's continued presence indicates this is not just a lab experiment, but a hedge against slowing watch growth.
The capital strategy is to use high-margin watch cash flow to test a lower-interface, potentially lower-priced strap, with a target price likely below the Watch SE. The motivation is not to immediately replace the Ultra, but to prevent fitness users from handing over nighttime and recovery data to Whoop subscriptions or Oura post-IPO. Resource allocation is reflected in organizational changes: a new head for the health team, a redesign of the Health app, and the watch first incorporating readiness; the hardware prototype is merely a sensor shell of the same strategy. Actual investment in tooling will wait until research concludes.
Comparisons can be drawn to Google’s acquisition of Fitbit, which still struggles to penetrate Apple’s health account, and Amazon’s past attempts at screenless bands. The industry phase is shifting from watch expansion to form control: whoever can cover the wrist of users who "don’t want to see notifications but need sleep data" will maintain the default position in the health platform. If the 2027 Watch redesign and the post-2028 screenless strap are aligned, the product line will evolve from a single flagship to a matrix of high and low-end sensors.
The structural judgment pertains to the reconstruction of the industry chain. The mechanism is: screens were once a source of premium for watches, but now they become an obstacle to battery life and 24-hour wear; sensors and scoring algorithms can be commoditized separately from display devices. If Apple can establish the screenless strap as a data collection endpoint for Health, Whoop's subscription moat will diminish from being the "only continuous data source" to "just another strap," with pricing power reverting to the platform that owns the phone and health account.
ABAB News · Cognitive Laws
The screen is a premium, but also a tax on battery life
Competitors' scores will first be integrated into the system before being turned into hardware
The platform supplements a narrower product to prevent data flow